9. The earth, which reached nearly to the
large square on the previous
page, now fits into the small square. The distance we have had to travel
straight up, to get its size thus reduced, is tremendous: according to
our reckoning in drawings 4 and 5, we should be now 500,000 kilometers
up, or about 312,500 miles - more than the distance to the moon. From
here we see the earth as a planet spinning counterclockwise in the
empty, dark, surrounding space. The sun, in the south, makes it shed its
shadow toward the north. Two faint dotted lines mark the limits of this
"umbra" (1). Another dotted line (2) gives the path along which the
earth moves, from right to left. Many faraway stars would be visible,
but these are left out in this drawing and others that follow, to
concentrate attention on our "immediate surroundings".